Essentially I'm looking for a list of texture/lighting mods and a good, lore-friendly ENB to go with it, with any preferences from mod menus and so forth specified.


I just grow a little bit weary from looking at all these different texture mods, deciding which ones are better than others, and trying to figure out what might work together etcetera, and it's been putting me off playing for a while. The whole thing can be a bit intimidating.


Basically, what's your "ultimate" set-up?

I'd appreciate any input on this but lore-friendly setups appeal to me much more than others.

I'm using Mod Organiser by the way.

Thanks.

I mostly follow the http://wiki.step-project.com/STEP:2.2.9.2, then add amidianborn textures (weapons/armor/landscape) at the end to overwrite. The benefit to following the guide is mainly for landscape textures. If you follow it, you'll minimize the annoying landscape seams that sometimes appear.

My personal favorite mods are:

Everything http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/users/571605/?tb=mods&pUp=1

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/141/? (You can partially overwrite with http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/3812/? if you want to mix in those textures)

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/55518/?

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/5388/? - looks amazing, some people think it's too blue, but there's a less saturated option

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/8655/?(Static Mesh Improvement Mod)

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/67478/? - looks amazing, noticeably hits your FPS

And use the http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/79391/?tab=1&navtag=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nexusmods.com%2Fskyrim%2Fajax%2Fmoddescription%2F%3Fid%3D79391%26preview%3D&pUp=1 if you use UG2 (otherwise, the terrain around Lakeview Manor is messed up)

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/68782/? - Use with http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/59721/?. Wow. DyndoLOD might look intimidating at first, but it's easy to use. The only thing is that you have to run it so it can dynamically build distant terrain according to your mod setup. It can take up to an hour to generate all of it's files, but it looks great. The best description of DyndoLOD I've read is: you don't need it until you try it, but once you do, you'll never remove it from your load order.

...and a general rule is to use parallax textures when possible (landscape, houses, etc.), if you have a decent rig. Parallax makes 2D textures look more 3D. You need ENB for it.

My favorite ENBs, in no particular order (I cycle between all of these):

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/50065/? - unbelievably good, realistic lighting with a cold North feel

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/50501/? - these are amazing, rich, lush presets (he has several variations), more grimdark fantasy than realistic

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/58338/? - the author Kyo has been refining his look and writing custom shaders since 2012/2013, a lot of other presets use his work

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/41482/? - for a more mellow, pleasant preset, IIRC this doesn't hit FPS as hard as G&S or K ENB

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/43765/? - one of my all time favorites, hasn't been updated for a couple of years, but it still looks great

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/67483/? - for a clean, great looking preset, hits performance pretty hard

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/37202/?- hasn't been updated in years, but still looks great

Keep in mind that some presets, like K ENB, are designed with top of the line dual GPU setups in mind. Even his "performance friendly" presets are rough on GPUs, but they're usable for play. NLA and I think Rudy don't require so much hardware. The other presets are in the middle.

OK, I think that qualifies for too much information.